Hector Him’s House

Image by youngdoo via Flickr

Describe your dream house.

It can be a shack in a shanty town or a palace in Palestine; I really don’t care.  I have only one requirement: no clutter.

For new readers who don’t know my back story, the Hub was a pack rat in a previous life.  I’ll include some links for you to read as evidence. 

The Hub hasn’t yet made the connection that no clutter = no nagging.  When he does, I think my marriage might end up surviving past twenty-seven years after all.

&

• A Bargain Is Only A Bargain If Your Wife Is Still Speaking To You
• Light 
• Clutter
• Declutter

The Laughing Housewife Is Decorated For Services To Housework

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sorry: my fingers misread my thoughts.  That should read: The Laughing Housewife Is Decorating As Part Of Her Indentured Servitude.

The house was re-wired fourteen months ago.  I need to paint the ceilings, particularly around the light fixtures.  You might think it has taken me a long time to get to it but you have to factor in:

1. I walk the dogs a lot.
2. In that time I have painted and/or papered the lounge, downstairs hall, upstairs hall, Tory Boy bedroom, downstairs toilet, one side of the bannister.
3. I play computer games a lot.
4. I couldn’t do anything while the kitchen and bathroom were refurbished.
5. I spend all day writing blogs, reading blogs, writing comments on blogs, reading comments on blogs, replying to comments on blogs.
6. In Tilly Bud Time, fourteen months is nothing: it took me six years to finish decorating the hall, by which time I had to re-paint the woodwork and the paper was two different shades because the stuff that had gone up first had faded to a dirty hand print colour.

I only have to paint two ceilings, so an afternoon should do it.  By which I mean it will take at least a week.  There’s the shifting, the carting, the cleaning, the dusting, the wall prep, the equipment to dig out of the loft, the sheets to cover everything, the arguing with the Hub because I’m exhausted and in a bad mood, the long bath to soak away aches and pains and plan his assassination, the cleaning up once I’m done, the long bath because I should have cleaned up before I took the first long bath and now I’m dirty again from cleaning, and the lying on the couch in the recovery position while my grateful family bring me cups of Earl Grey tea and apologies because they forgot to buy me a thank you box of Maltesers.

I’m telling you all this not to show how industrious I am, which I am, but to apologise in advance if I don’t comment on your blog or reply to comments on mine for the next few days.  I planned to start the decorating today and I’m already a day behind because I’m going out tonight and I can’t paint, cook and weep at an amateur production of Hamlet all in one day.  I’ll start tomorrow.  Or Wednesday.

A Housewife’s Work Is Never Done; That Must Be Why We Don’t Get Paid

Image by clotho98 via Flickr

If you could go back in time and have a 5 minute conversation with yourself ten years ago, what would you say?

‘Don’t wait to get a degree before applying for jobs.  Trust me: it will only help if you’re already in work.  And think again before eating every Malteser on the planet: a billion past the lips means inches on the hips…heart disease…diabetes…a crane hoist.’

Why is it only work if it’s paid?  Cooking and cleaning and tidying and child care and child minding and child ferrying about from school to club to friends’ to doctor/dentist/hospital, the decorating, the shopping, the clearing out, the nursing, the ironing, all of it: why is it ‘work’ if I pay someone else to do it; but not if I do it myself?  The twenty years I’ve spent looking after my family and all the volunteer work, is not really ‘work’ because I never thought to ask for payment.  Silly me.

According to a study in 2008, I should be on £30,000 a year for my ‘nine-hour days’ (nine hours – I wish).  Okay, I might not quite make the regulation 71 minutes of cleaning and tidying – or even 7.1 minutes, if I’m honest – and if a chambermaid takes fourteen minutes to make a bed then I should be on a bonus for my 1.4 minutes per bed (mine; the kids make their own); but I should be good for at least £25,000.

I don’t mind that I don’t get paid for it (that’s why God gave me kisses from my children, after all); I mind that it’s not considered work.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because I don’t need a degree for the job I really want: this one, advertised on the Arts Council’s website.  Imagine the look of consternation on the face of everyone who ever asked me what I do for a living, and I could reply: Freelance Didgeridoo Artist.

If I’m going to make that happen I’d better get back to my carpentry; the roof extension won’t build itself.